Facebook Video Ad Pitch Deck Reveals Plans To Steal TV And YouTube Dollars

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/13/facebook-vs-tv-and-youtube/

by sharmanaetor • 13 years ago

50 32 13 years ago

psbp2• 13 years ago

It amazes me that facebook has achieved this sweet spot of harvesting personalized ad dollars while providing so little utility.

nemothekid2• 13 years ago

So little utility defined how? I'm hard pressed to believe that a site almost a billion monthly uniques isn't providing utility to any of them. Or are you just on your latest "holier than thou" act and need to tell the world that you don't like facebook? Then congratulations for not liking facebook.

psbp2• 13 years ago

The amount and conviction of users doesn't imply usefulness. There are pretty obvious examples of this.

I don't dislike Facebook. I'm just amazed that their bargain is so lucrative. I don't think it will be best for consumers or the industry, but that's not really Facebook's responsibility. Is it?

natrius• 13 years ago

Other than Google search and maps, Facebook is the most useful service I use on the web.

rayiner• 13 years ago

Facebook and the iPad are in at least one way the two most useful and amazing tech products I've ever encountered. My mom never "got" computers despite having a house full of techies to help her. She got an iPad and Facebook and without even so much as asking me or my brother how to do something, is now e-mailing, texting, and sharing videos and videos of my daughter with her other grandparents. It's been a total and utter game-changer.

randartie• 13 years ago

How does sharing digital content with people you know qualify as 'little utility'?

sveron• 13 years ago

"Steal TV and Youtube Dollars"? This headline is nonsensically sensational.

This is a pitch deck describing an upgraded Facebook video product. In it, they make a case for the effectiveness of their ad targeting, and its competitive advantages. The news is that they're entering the broader video market.

Also, while the contents of the deck may be protected by an NDA, my sense is that there's absolutely nothing in this deck Facebook doesn't want you to read. I'd strongly suspect that it was an intentional leak to build awareness.

10098• 13 years ago

I swear to god, the day people finally realize they can actually block ads, we're going to have a massive collapse of the industry. Fear that day.

socillion• 13 years ago

It's already happening: http://downloads.pagefair.com/reports/the_rise_of_adblocking...

I'd imagine a site like Facebook would have much lower ad blocking rates than average, though, due to low technical ability among users.

KrisAndrew2• 13 years ago

They have high adblocking among younger users (<35). This is why everyone is interested in buying (non-revenue-generating) chat apps lately. Adblocking hasn't matured enough yet to block ads wholesale in applications. Facebook and Google want to recapture the ad impressions and clicks lost on users who are using blocking technologies.

infinitone• 13 years ago

There may be truth to this. I only recently finally decided to get AdBlock... and man... I can't imagine a world without it. Then again, whats to stop Chrome Store from removing the extension?

selmnoo2• 13 years ago

Then again, whats to stop Chrome Store from removing the extension?

The fact that I'll switch to Firefox the day they do that?

fsckin• 13 years ago

Chromium, Firefox, Opera

deepblueocean2• 13 years ago

How about a simple antitrust argument: if Google wants to use their power in the browser market, where they have majority power, to dictate the shape of the online advertising market, I think DoJ would have a pretty slam dunk case. Especially since Microsoft would be happy to pay for the best lawyers out there to write all the briefs in the case.

deepblueocean2• 13 years ago

It's definitely true that content blocking is the user's trump card in the online tracking vs. privacy debate.

seiji• 13 years ago

Why doesn't anybody exploit the never ending stream of Windows zero days to install blanket ad blockers on every machine possible?

TrevorJ• 13 years ago

Fear? No, I don't think so. I think there are a lot of people who are eager for business models that don't include having your data sold, or being advertised to.

Adoption of adblock isn't something that is happening too fast to respond to, and it is a good thing, I believe, because it should create some innovation on the monetization side. Ad revenue isn't the only game in town, and I think consumers are receptive to other models that give them more control.

Houshalter2• 13 years ago

The advertising industry is responsible for most malware and privacy concerns. They get money through manipulating people and I'm not certain they are actually adding much of value in the first place.

Recommendation engines for app stores and online stores like amazon do the job of informing people of new things much better, and I think replaces the need for them entirely.

mullingitover2• 13 years ago

The lack of adblock options on mobile Safari and Chrome has to be a massive boon and a huge relief to advertisers. You can get third-party browsers that have some adblocking features, but I suspect the percentage of people on mobile who use them is in the low single digits.

binarycrusader2• 13 years ago

AdBlock is available for Chrome and works just fine.

I don't know about Safari.

rahimnathwani• 13 years ago

It's possible to block ads using squid proxy with squidguard. Although less effective than AdBlock, and requiring a little more effort to get started, it does work.

I'm curious whether anyone on HN does this for themselves and, if so, is your squid server at home, on a VPS, or somewhere else?

annoyedgoogler• 13 years ago

FaceBook is such a waste of time & treasure. They should all be ashamed of working for such a useless company.

sharmanaetor• 13 years ago

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." -- Jeff Hammerbacher

selmnoo2• 13 years ago

Jeff Hammerbacher is founder and Chief Scientist of Cloudera, Assistant Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Director at Sage Bionetworks. Formerly an Entrepreneur in Residence at Accel Partners. Before Accel, [Jeff] conceived, built, and led the Data team at Facebook.

Well, he could start by not working for institutions whose entire business is predicated on making people click ads.

KrisAndrew2• 13 years ago

This is why his words carry weight. He's probably watched capable engineers and managers go from successfully building an impressive software system to pulling out their hair because they're constantly trying to figure out human systems, which are highly variable.

tagawa• 13 years ago

This "accidental" leak turned out to be a pretty good advert itself for Facebook video ads.

Facebook Video Ad Pitch Deck Reveals Plans To Steal TV And YouTube Dollars

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